Watching YouTube with intention
Or the 'Watch Later' feature is my friend
I've known for a while that YouTube is one of my worst addictions. I would have a terrible habit of grabbing my breakfast in the morning and loading up some slop that doesn't improve anything for me or teach me anything, is really just mind rotting nonsense or drama that makes me feel slightly better about myself temporarily. I've tried to combat this. I even have three different accounts. The first one I created had all my subscriptions on and all the nonsense on it's history. Eventually I realised I didn't want my friends seeing some of the embarrasing stuff that was on there so and I now had a TV that would have YouTube on, so I started using a different account that had less nonsense on there. Then I had another account that would only have self-improvement content on there. My plan then was to avoid the first account, the nonsense account, as much as possible.
It was difficult. I even considered cutting YouTube out completely, especially after seeing a video by MJ DeMarco on quiting YouTube. But I knew from the start that that wouldn't work, and besides I knew there would be stuff on there that I wanted to watch that wasn't bad for me, such as the odd self improvement video or an interesting history video.
While I've been practicing daily journalling and reading more, I've started to understand the importance of doing things with intention and difference between it and mindless scrolling. I don't feel so bad if I go on YouTube knowing which video I want to watch, putting it on and giving it my full intention than if I scroll through my recommended videos, picking one that seems alright and having it on while I also scroll on my phone. So I've started setting myself and sticking to rules about how I consume YouTube.
For a start, I can only go on YouTube for three things. These are:
- Scrolling for a bit to find future videos
- Going on for a specific video I know I'm going to watch
- Watching a trailer for a game or film I'm interested in
The first is the most important to set rules around. I can scroll through my recommendations and subscriptions and add videos to the 'Watch Later' playlist, however I can only do it for a set amount of time, 10 minutes maximum. I also can't do this if I already have a dearth of videos already on the list. I don't have a set rule for how many videos or what kind of videos are on there, but if I feel like I have enough on it, I can't add more.
The second is where the intentional watching of YouTube videos comes into play. Now I know what videos are there that I can watch, and often I'll know how long they are, I can plan to sit down and focus solely on the specific video I want to get through. I can set time aside for it, or if I see I have a certain amount of time to kill before I can do something else, I know I can intentionally focus on one of those videos for a time. This has greatly improved my mood when it comes to watching YouTube videos.
The third is for that outlying example. I don't always know when a trailer for something I'm excited for will come out, but if I see that one has been released I can go on, watch it, then turn of YouTube. The trailers are typically no longer than 3 or 4 minutes so it's not a big deal. The best example of this I can think of would be the trailer for the upcoming Avengers movie which is exciting to me.
Overall, this has massively improved my ability to focus on the YouTube videos that will offer me something in my life, while also helping me to avoid falling in the rabbit hole of mindless scrolling. I'm going to try keeping up this practise for a while, sticking to these rules and see how things go, but I'm already seeing a marked improvement in my mood and in the use of my time.